The Obnoxious In-Laws
by Willowth'Wisp
Summary: "I think we should go to the Malfoy Christmas party every year." As she expected, Draco's body went taut underneath hers. His blue eyes sharpened, grew piercing as two jagged slivers of ice, and she ran a hand through his winter-wheat hair with a snicker at the expression on his face. If only to lighten the mood.


Astoria giggled and stumbled up the steps after him, catching his hand as she nearly went down, the alcohol sloshing in her stomach making her feel warm and bright and brave in an exciting, enticing kind of way.

Draco snickered and pulled his young wife to her feet, falling against the door as her body toppled into his. She giggled even harder at his amused expression, reaching up to tug on his earlobes and to say, "Hey, look at that, you've got ears."

"What a discovery."

She laughed even harder, big, belly laughs that shook her slender form. "So _why_ , darling husband, don't you listen more often?"

He snorted, shaking his head, his mussed blonde hair a little disheveled from the night they'd just had. But the biting winter air stung their cheeks, turning them pink, and whipping the long dark hair that had fallen from Astoria's once-elegant bun around her laughing face. He twisted the doorknob and they fell into the house, a giggling mess, and Astoria stumbled to straighten herself in order to watch as Draco, as the more sober of the two of them, pulled out his wand to lock the door behind them.

She pulled her scarf from her neck, the bright fabric whipping outward as its knot parted from sheer pressure, and tossed it carelessly on the banister. "We can always count on your parents for a laugh."

Draco rolled his eyes at her, and she laughed as she slipped out of her coat, shivering as the drafty air nipped at her arms. The golden, sequiny dress perfect for a party was decidedly _not_ perfect for such a bitterly cold night as this. She slid the armholes through a coat hanger and placed it on the coat rack (with a couple tries, watched by the amused Draco, and she made a face at him).

"Yeah, well, at least they mean well, right?"

They looked at each other and Astoria burst out laughing again, and Draco's smile widened to a grin as he watched her sag against the wall, heaving with giggles punctuated by breathless gasps for air.

"How much did you drink?" he asked, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her upright, letting her fall against him instead. She grinned at him and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"I dunno. I lost count after my darling father-in-law told me I was no more than a stuffed rabbit under the eyes of the Dark Lord." She snorted, but Draco's amusement melted from his face, replaced by an ugly frown. "I think he'd had a little too much to drink, too, honestly..."

"He said _what?_ "

"I can't imagine why he thought a _stuffed rabbit_ , of all things, was a good insult to-"

"Tori," said Draco, and even in her happy haze, she recognized the sharpness sliding under his words like the serpent so many liked to compare him to. She looked at him, sobering a little, and laid a comforting hand on his arm. Once again, she was reminded that when push came to shove, he'd chosen her over his family, over his legacy, over everything that had been his life as a teenager.

Warmth that had nothing to do with alcohol warmed the base of her stomach.

"It's alright, Draco," she said softly, waiting for the hard planes of his face to soften. "It doesn't matter."

She grinned and stood on tiptoe to press a kiss to his thin lips. "I've been called much worse than a stuffed rabbit."

He exhaled. "That's not really the point."

She dropped her clutch to the table and leaned up once more, kissing along his jaw and enjoying the way he leaned helplessly into her touch. "Right. But we could talk about how dysfunctional our family is, or we could remember that _this_ family right here is anything but."

After a moment in which their quickening breath was the only sound, Draco turned his head and caught her mouth in his, his hand creeping up to loosen the rest of her dilapidated bun. Her hair was a feathery brush against her neck and back, and her fingers tunneled into his sleek blonde hair, kissing him with all the eagerness of a teenager.

Heavy breathing and moans and roving hands, disheveled hair and shed clothes and pressure, and heat crept up their limbs and down into their cores until neither could think of anything but the other. He pressed her against a wall and kissed her like a drowning man, she wound her arms around his neck and her legs around his trim waist, and against his mouth, she was soon gasping, "Bedroom?"

"Bedroom," he agreed, his words barely more than a push of air.

She smiled against hungry lips as she was whipped sideways so fast she almost fell. Her grip tightened on him as he stumbled to their door, pushed it open, and she fell against sheets as he fell against her.

Zippers dragged down and lips pressed against everything they could reach and hands fisted into sheets. Gasps and moans and pleas. Reckless exploration and passionate kisses and overflowing liquid fire. As desperate as their first time, when he'd been dangerous and broken by the things that he had done, the things he couldn't explain to himself, when she'd loved him even when he didn't know what that word meant.

"I love you," she gasped, and he kissed her quiet. She raked her nails over his back and he bit down on her shoulder hard enough to make her cry out with the little breath he'd left her with. She teased him until he was growling against her skin, biting and kissing and begging, and when she gave in, he made her pay in turn with every twist and turn of his fingers. His touch played over her skin, down her belly, and she arched into his touch, unable to see with every wave of sensation crashing into her. He worshiped her breasts, her body, her sleek thighs.

Eventually, both husband and wife lay against each other's fevered skin and breathed in the other's warm, sated scent.

His fingers ran through her hair, catching on a few snags, and she pressed a kiss against the underside of his jaw.

She pulled herself up onto his chest and looked down at him, her dark hair curtaining around his face, closing their already-private world of their bedroom into an even smaller space. She looked down at him, at the sharp blue eyes turned drowsy by their lovemaking, and traced the tip of her finger down his cheek.

"We should make this a tradition," she suggested and Draco snorted, opening his eyes and looking up at her wryly.

"What? _This?_ "

Her cheeks grew warm. "No- I mean, well, yes, but- Oh shut up, Draco."

He laughed and she smacked his chest. "Listen to me!"

"Okay, okay..." Grinning, he settled down and looked at her expectantly.

She moistened her lips, uncertain for a moment of how to go about conveying what she wanted to say, but knew if she waited any longer he would think something was wrong. And it wasn't. Not really.

"I think we should go to the Malfoy Christmas party every year."

As she expected, Draco's body went taut underneath hers. His blue eyes sharpened, grew piercing as two jagged slivers of ice, and she ran a hand through his winter-wheat hair with a snicker at the expression on his face. If only to lighten the mood. He laughed so much more now, but she knew his tendency to drift in a downward spiral still lingered.

"Why?" he asked slowly, huffing a sigh, and propped himself up on his elbows to look at her.

She shrugged, avoiding his eyes. "Because they are family, Draco."

"They-" He swallowed audibly and her dark flicked up in time to see his eyes soften. "They...disapprove of you, Astoria. You know that."

She rolled her eyes. "You mean they hate me."

He winced. "I wouldn't go that far."

"I would."

He met her eyes, and the dark, warm gaze like the still-warm coals of a dying fire didn't waver from the ones chipped from the very essence of winter.

She swallowed slightly, the look on his face twisting all kinds of things in her gut into a warm, messy bundle.

"I love you," he said, as though to make sure she knew it, and she smiled at him.

"I know," she promised.

"But... Tori, _why?_ I don't mind mind not going back. Not really. I don't-" he swallowed, seeming to struggle with something too great for words. "You're what I want. You're enough."

Her tongue slipped out to moisten her lips as she lowered her eyes, a heat creeping up to swirl under her cheeks, but she didn't feel inclined to back down right then. Draco needed to see his family. _All_ of it.

"Because they're your parents," she answered softly. "Because your mother protected you during the war, because when push came to shove, they chose _you_ over Voldemort. Just as- as when things became... _difficult_ , you chose me over..." She bit her lip, unable to help the lingering stab of guilt, sharp as a splinter.

"Over them," he finished, raising a hand to smooth over her cheek, and she leaned into his palm before the urge became a conscious thought.

"Yes," she confirmed softly, her words a cottony slip of a cobweb.

He kissed her again, his lips parting over hers, this kiss springing not from carnal desire but from something that bound two lovers. Astoria closed her eyes.

"They're your parents, Draco," she continued softly when he parted from her and a silence settled over them for a few moments. "And I know you love them. I- I know you chose me when you slipped this on my finger-" She raised her left hand where a golden band glittered, "but if I can help it, you won't _have_ to choose between us."

"Doesn't it hurt?" he asked quietly, after absorbing her words with a look on his face that Astoria couldn't quite decipher. His fingers wound into her thick hair like he was thinking about kissing her again.

"What? Their opinions of me?"

"Yeah."

She shrugged and settled down over him, pillowing her head against his bare pectoral. "A little, but I'll win them over one day."

Draco's chuckle was soft, husky, and a little resigned, as though he knew the senior generation of Malfoys were as set in their ways as a sand grain caught in dried glue. But Astoria wasn't going to believe that. If they could change everything for their son, if Draco could disentangle himself from everything he'd once believed for _her_ , then she'd believe anyone could change anything about themselves if they truly wanted it.

Even her obnoxious in-laws.

* * *

 _~Fin_


End file.
